


Born the Right Way

by VelkynKarma



Series: Parallel by Proxy [15]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kuron (Voltron)-centric, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sleep Deprivation, Torture, Whump, heed warnings, this one's dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 05:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18887995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: The dream comes every night. It's terrifying, and it's not Shiro's, which can only mean it's a piece of Ryou's past. Problem is, it's a piece he'd rather not remember, and it won't take 'no' for an answer.





	Born the Right Way

**Author's Note:**

> There hasn't been some serious angst in this series recently. I guess it's time to remedy that.
> 
>  **Please heed the warnings,** as this fic is pretty dark and contains what are essentially torture sessions. If that's not your kind of thing, you're better off skipping this fic.

_He can’t move._

_Everything is bright, too bright,_ painfully _bright. It shines white and hot in his face and leaves shapes lingering behind. Sharp lines criss-cross above him behind the brightness, etch into his vision._

_There are monsters everywhere._

_They surround him. They watch him hungrily with long, gleaming red eyes set in dark, mouthless faces. Their clawed hands force him down; he can’t move because of_ them. _They make muffled noises, even with their mouthless heads, noises that are low and cold. They make their noises and they press him down against cold and hard and their clawed hands are painful as they keep him still._

 _He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t like this. It_ hurts. _The monsters are hurting him. He doesn’t know why._

_He doesn’t want to be here. He tries to pull away, but he doesn’t know how to, and their clawed hands are so strong. They keep him still._

_He tries harder. Something in his throat gets tight, and he hears a new noise, a keening thing. The monsters don’t like it. Their noises get louder, more guttural._

_He doesn’t like that, and trembles, and the keening gets louder, and his throat hurts. Something inside him is loud and painful, a harsh_ thud thud thud _he can feel and he can hear. Breathing gets harder. The keening warbles up and down, soft, loud, struggling._

_The monsters grow louder still. They make noises at each other, wave their claws at each other, at him. He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want them to be louder. Bad things happen when they’re louder. He doesn’t want bad things._

_He tries to turn his head away. To pull away from them again. They hold him tighter and don’t let him. One monster grabs his head, forces it back straight. The keening noise happens again, and he tries to pull away again, but he can’t. The claws are strong, and something presses hard against his head, and he can’t move._

_He trembles, but the monsters don’t even like that. They make more loud noises, more gestures with their claws. The pressing on his head gets even stronger, their clawed hands grip him tighter, and he can’t even shiver._

_His throat is tight, painful. The keening noise happens again. The monsters snarl and hiss at each other._

_The_ thud thud thud _inside of him is so loud and so painful now. He doesn’t want that to make the monsters louder, either. But he can’t stop it._

_The monsters stop gesturing. One comes closer. Something gleams in its clawed hand, something long and bright. It brings the thing close to him, to his head, to his eyes._

_He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t_ like _that! He tries to pull away, to move his head, but he can’t move. His head is still, and the monsters hold him down with their strong hands. He can’t make them stop._

 _The_ thud thud thud _inside him beats painfully. The keening noise grows higher, wilder. The monsters’ noises grow louder. And the long, bright thing comes closer and closer and—_

Ryou’s eyes snap open.

It takes him a moment to register he’s not surrounded by monsters on a hard surface, but on his bed in his room in the Castle of Lions. It takes him a moment to register the cool, pale Altean blues and not the sickly Galra purples in his mind. It takes him a moment to realize his throat is still painfully tight, and there’s an ugly, stifled whining squirming its way out of his clenched teeth.

It takes him a moment, but when it finally all settles and his conscious mind catches up, he wrenches his painfully clenched jaw open and lets out a shuddering gasp. He claws the blankets off, and scrambles upright, until he’s sitting on the side of his bed with his feet firmly on the cold floor. It’s chilly, but his violent shivering has nothing to do with the temperature.

A gentle, soothing scent fills his nose, and for the first time he recognizes that it’s been there since he woke up. He glances over at the glossy golden plant on his bedside table, its long ivy tendrils cascading over the edges of the nightstand towards his pillow. Reflexively, he reaches out to rub one of the leaves between his left thumb and forefinger.

The soft leaf between his fingers is comforting, and the touch is reassuring. The calming scent gets stronger, and his shivering lessens, if only a little. His breathing settles from ragged gulps of air to only occasionally shuddering gasps, and the pathetic whimpering quiets. It helps. But only slightly.

 _That_ dream again.

It’s not the first time he’s had it. It’s plagued him every time he goes to sleep for the past three quintents. It’s always the same, and it always stops at the same point, and he always wakes the same way: confused, shaking, whimpering, and barely coherent of who or where he is.

The finer details are starting to trickle away, now, but like always, he can still remember most of it. Awake, the nightmare is frightening in an entirely new way. Awake, his conscious mind can put together some of the pieces of what he’s seeing, and he has more context for what’s happening.

It doesn’t make the nightmare less terrifying. If anything, it makes it _worse._ The monsters aren’t monsters. Awake, he can recognize the full facemasks and dark, long-coated uniforms of Galra scientists and lab technicians for what they really are. He can comprehend the bright lights and criss-crossing shapes as the surgical lamps in a Galra lab. He can recognize the gleaming metal of a scalpel coming directly for his face.

The only thing he _can’t_ understand, try as he might, are the words the Galra had spoken above him. Those remain wordless, guttural noises, incomprehensible.

Part of him desperately wants to know what’s being said. It feels like it would give the dream so much more clarity, if he just _understood._ The other part of him is terrified of ever finding out.

Because he doesn’t think this is just a mere nightmare. And that makes it all the more frightening. A nightmare fabricated by his brain never happened. A nightmare fabricated by memory means it’s _real._

He doesn’t want this to be real.

He doesn’t want to know how it ends.

And yet, he has a feeling he won’t have much choice in the matter.

Heaving a shuddering sigh, he glances at the clock. It’s early, even by Shiro’s early-rising standards, but Ryou knows he won’t be sleeping again. Supposedly, he’d gotten five vargas of rest. It certainly doesn’t feel like it; he feels completely drained and sluggish.

Doing his best to push the nightmare to the back of his mind, he wearily drags himself to his feet. He takes his dormancy pill, moves the dream ivy to his clothes chest, and tries to stay busy with the morning routine. Snapping on the sunlamp, watering the chameleon succulent, and misting the dream ivy helps, a little. It’s comfortingly familiar, at least.

But not even that is enough to fully edge the lingering remnants of that nightmare out of the way. So he eventually gets dressed and heads out into the dimly lit hallways, making for the kitchen.

No one is up at this varga, usually. Not of their own accord. Sometimes Shiro will be, if he’s had a bad night too, but not even Shiro will be up this early of his own free will if fate is kind enough to let him rest. Ryou has the halls to himself as he wanders down them. He’s grateful for that, since it means nobody is there to ask questions.

It’s far too early to start on even an elaborate breakfast. Nobody else will be up for two vargas at least, and some of them will sleep even longer if Shiro lets them.

He busies himself preparing a soothing cup of _taris_ for himself, instead. The hot drink has the creamy, smooth texture of good hot cocoa, but the scent and taste of a calming herbal tea, and it works wonders on the nerves. Preparing it is relaxing, and drinking it even more so. By the time he’s finished and rinses out the cup, a varga has passed, and his nerves at least are a little more settled. Even if the rest of him isn’t.

It’s enough to get him ready to face the day, at least. By the time the others are starting to wake, Ryou is more or less in control again. No one knows about the three sleepless nights he’s had so far, and no one needs to know, either.

He doesn’t want to acknowledge those dreams any more than he has to. The more he does, the more _real_ they are. And if others know, if he has to explain them, they’ll be real that much faster.

It’s fine. Everything will be fine. These will move on eventually. Shiro’s nightmares always did, eventually, even if they were replaced by others. Sooner or later, this one will leave him alone, and he’ll get a quintent or two of peace again.

Surely, that will happen soon.

* * *

 

He has the nightmare again, the next night. Like before, it ends at the same place, with that scalpel coming for his face. Like before, he wakes shaking and confused, far too early but unable to retreat back into slumber.

By now, Ryou is starting to feel the effects of his sleepless nights. He does rest, but not enough, and it never feels like it once he’s awake.

He’s done a fairly good job keeping his problems to himself. But he knows a few of them—Shiro, Keith and Matt highest on the list—are suspicious. All three are familiar with Shiro’s body language, and thus most of Ryou’s, enough to read into if there’s any trouble.

It means Ryou needs to stick to routine as much as possible. Any deviation from his usual patterns will be spotted. Which, today, means sparring with Allura.

Ever since his recovery, when he’d first had the opportunity to re-learn combat, Allura and Ryou had sparred once a spicolian movement whenever possible. Ryou had lost most of Shiro’s fighting forms with his failsafe illness, and had taken the opportunity to learn other fighting styles. Allura had been more than happy to teach him _youur-jun,_ a simultaneously graceful yet powerful Altean method of fighting that controlled the combat—and the opponent—from start to finish.

Adapting to it at first had been tricky, since it had been designed for and by Alteans, who had significantly more physical strength and adaptability naturally than humans did. But Ryou was a dedicated and quick learner, and Allura a good teacher. He’d picked up the basics skillfully, and they had trained regularly since to advance Ryou’s abilities in the style further.

It benefited the both of them in the long run. Ryou could differentiate his combat style from Shiro’s, making him harder to predict. Allura was able to share something of her homeland with another, something she greatly appreciated.

Normally, Ryou enjoys their sparring sessions. Today, he dreads the thought of it, but dutifully arrives at the training deck at their regular varga. Allura greets him as usual, and they begin.

At first, everything goes smoothly. They warm up using Altean training exercises, and run through basic forms together. For a very short while Ryou can almost forget about the bad dreams, losing himself in the comfortingly familiar physical exercise and repetition.

But once they spar, things begin to go south. Within ten doboshes Allura runs through a standard striking sequence that they’ve both practiced hundreds of times. Ryou knows the proper counter, but after four restless nights, his reaction time is sluggish. Before he knows it, he’s on the floor, left arm throbbing from the painful twist-lock Allura had used to toss him aside.

“Oh!” Allura yelps, surprised. “I am so sorry, Ryou. I thought you were going to block…” She extends a hand to help him up, and Ryou, wincing, accepts it.

“It’s alright, princess,” he says, once he’s on his feet again. “That’s my fault. I was distracted. I should have paid better attention.”

Allura frowns. “Distracted? Is there perhaps something I can help with?”

For a fleeting tick, Ryou considers telling her that he’s been having recurring nightmares. He banishes the thought almost immediately. Allura has _more_ than enough to deal with, between the Galra, the coalition, and her own personal affairs. Nothing she could do or say would change anything for him.

And if he tells her, it’s a failure on his part, because he’s admitting that it’s _real._

“I’m all set,” Ryou lies instead. “But maybe a rain check on the rest of the sparring, today?”

Allura’s frown is more puzzled this time. ‘What is a….’rain check’?”

The question is a helpful and thankfully distracting diversion from the original topic. Ryou goes on to explain Earthling idioms, to Allura’s bemusement. They do put a halt on the sparring for the day, though, and other than a few minor bruises on Ryou’s part, the incident is forgotten.

For now.

* * *

 

For the fifth night in a row he has the nightmare. For the fifth quintent in a row he wakes absurdly early, gasping and shaking with his arms wrapped around himself, wishing it would just _stop_ already.

The lack of rest and the constant anxiety take a heavier toll on him that day. He barely focuses when Shiro runs through the itinerary for the day for all of them, so it’s fortunate he’s not really needed for anything.

Normally that would frustrate him. He hates being useless. Today he’s grateful for it. It means less things he can accidentally screw up, and less things people can notice.

He can’t escape them entirely, though. He’s supposed to help Hunk with dinner, but he’s so sluggish he doesn’t pay proper attention, and ends up slicing into his thumb while cutting vegetables. Not even the metal thumb, either, which is just bad luck.

“Woah, watch what you’re do—oooh, that is blood, that is _blood,”_ Hunk frets, with a queasy expression.

He tosses a dishrag to Ryou, who stares at his sliced thumb blankly, until slow comprehension overtakes his sleep deprivation and reminds him to actually do something about it. He clamps the rag around his bleeding thumb, wincing as the sharp stab of pain belatedly assaults his senses. “Thanks.”

“I guess that veggie’s lost,” Hunk says, glancing at the bloodied cutting board and bright blue vegetable on top of it, now a darker purple. He glances away again hastily, still queasy.

“Sorry,” Ryou says. He really does mean it, too. This shouldn’t be affecting him _this_ bad. He’s fine. He’s got this under control.

“It’s okay, there’s more,” Hunk says. “We’ll just disinfect the board and get another one. It’s cool.”

Ryou doesn’t answer.

Hunk frowns. “Hey,” he says slowly. “You okay?”

Ryou blinks. “What? Yes. I mean, other than the slice I just gave himself.” He holds up his hand, still clamped in the dish towel. “Kitchen accidents. Happens to everyone.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Hunk says. “I can take care of this, if you want to get that bandaged up. We’re mostly done anyway.”

“Sure. Thanks.” Ryou accepts the excuse to leave gladly, mindful on Hunk’s eyes on him as he heads out the door.

He does go to bandage up the cut, though not in the infirmary. He doesn’t think he can handle the infirmary right now. Even if the pods are retracted—

No. Nope. He’s not going there, physically or mentally. Not now.

So he retrieves the first aid kit from the Black Lion instead. The Black Lion can sense his discomfort immediately, and fills his head with reassurance and calm and support. It helps, but the moment the Lion starts to push him to open up, or conveys its name for Shiro into Ryou’s head, he balks. He doesn’t care if the Lion thinks its other paladin should know. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

So he removes what he needs from the kit, and stubbornly bandages his hand outside of the Lion, away from its voice. He can all but feel its giant yellow eyes staring at him reproachfully, like an exasperated guardian, but it can’t lecture him out here.

The thumb itself isn’t that bad. It will probably leave a small scar, but it will just be another of those little, unique details that differentiate him from Shiro. One more scar that’s his and only his.

Without prompting, he can see the scalpel hovering before his eyes again, gleaming and sharp and cruel.

 _“No,”_ he hisses, covering his face with his hand—the metal, Olkari one, the one he’d asked for, the one that was _his._ “No, no, no, go away. Just _go away._ I don’t want to see this. Just _leave me alone.”_

But he has a feeling it won’t be so easy as that.

* * *

 

It isn’t.

Night number six is the same as the others. The same dream, ending at the same spot. The same confusion, the same lack of understanding, the same fear. He’s so damn tired, but so afraid to go back to sleep.

He knows it’s not the end of the dream. Something in his gut tells him if he could just _finish_ it, things would maybe get easier. Maybe if it was done, it would go away. Something in his head is fighting hard to get out.

But he’s terrified of that happening, too. He doesn’t _want_ to know how it ends. He wants to keep everything safely buried and never, ever admit it exists. He wants it to just _go away._

He pushes through the day’s itinerary, but it’s a struggle to stay focused enough to act like himself, and takes everything he has. Even then he knows he’s not doing as well as he’d like, because Lance gives him several odd looks during their shooting training sessions with moving targets.

“Dude,” he asks finally. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine,” Ryou says immediately.

“Yeah? Just, you’ve been missing a lot of targets,” Lance says slowly. “And you seem kinda pale. Maybe you’re coming down with something?”

“I’m only missing compared to you,” Ryou says. “You know you’re the better sniper. You always out-shoot me.”

Flattery is normally a very easy way to sidetrack Lance. But although he grins a little at the praise, it fades just as quickly. “You _sure_ you’re okay? Maybe you should go lay down.”

“I’m fine,” Ryou repeats. “I promise, I’m not sick.” To prove it, he nails the next shot, blowing the circling metal training orb out of the air. It takes every scrap of concentration he has, but he does it.

Lance still seems a little unsure, but when Ryou successfully hits another two targets, he backs off. They make it through the rest of the training session without issues.

Or at least, Ryou assumes. Until Shiro pulls him aside several vargas later, after lunch.

He has a bad idea he knows what the topic will be about. Still, he’s a little surprised when Shiro jumps into it directly. “When was the last time you took your meds?”

Ryou blinks. It actually takes a moment for the unexpected question to register. “What?”

“Your failsafe medication,” Shiro clarifies, patiently. “When did you take it last?”

That’s what he’d thought, but Ryou almost immediately rankles at the question. Bad enough that he feels like garbage and his brain has been a warzone for the past six quintents. Now Shiro has to pick up the mother hen tendencies again? He’d thought they were _over_ this.

“This morning,” he answers, a little snappishly. “I can keep track of it myself, thanks.”

Shiro’s brows raise at the reaction. Ryou regrets letting his lack of sleep get the better of him; he probably could have been more diplomatic. But he still resents the implication that he needs looking after.

“Okay,” Shiro says after a moment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound like you couldn’t. But the others have mentioned some things to me—”

Ryou bristles. “What?”

“Don’t be angry at them,” Shiro says immediately, raising a placating hand. “They were worried. You’ve been acting off for the past few quintents. We’ve all seen it. Last time this happened, it was because you were getting sick.”

“I’m not sick,” Ryou reiterates. “I’m not off my meds. Is that all?”

“No,” Shiro says, frowning a little at Ryou’s brusque manner. “If you’re not sick, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Ryou.” Shiro gives him a look, but when he speaks, his tone is patient. “You don’t act like this over _nothing._ I know you’re trying to hide it, but you don’t _have_ to. You can tell me.”

“I don’t have anything to tell you, because _nothing is wrong,”_ Ryou reiterates.

But lying to Shiro is difficult even on a good day, and today is anything but a good day. Shiro watches him for a moment, and then says softly, sympathetically, “It’s dreams, isn’t it?”

Something in Ryou snaps at that. Shiro is _dangerously_ close to the truth, but Ryou wants nothing to _do_ with that truth, and he wants nothing to do with this conversation anymore. “No,” he hisses. “It isn’t. Shiro, we _talked_ about you being overprotective. I don’t need you swooping in to protect me from things that aren’t even there. Leave it alone.”

Shiro looks hurt by that, but Ryou is too tired to care. “Fine,” Shiro says, after a moment. “I won’t push. But you know you _can_ come to me or any of the others if something _was_ wrong, right?”

“I’m aware,” Ryou says, suddenly much more conscious of how worn out he feels, both physically and mentally. “But I don’t have to right now, because nothing’s wrong.”

Shiro doesn’t look happy with that answer. But he lets Ryou go, anyway.

Ryou should feel relieved at the victory. But all he feels is hollow inside.

* * *

 

Ryou had thought the first six quintents of the dream were bad. That the nightmare then was exhausting and terrifying. That it couldn’t get much worse.

He’s wrong. Because the next night, lucky number seven, is worse by far.

On the seventh night, it changes.

* * *

 

_He can’t move._

_Everything is painfully bright, leaving white spots across his vision. The monsters with their gleaming, long red eyes and mouthless faces surround him. Their cruel, clawed hands are all over him, forcing him down against something cold and hard. They make strange noises, low and cold and muffled, as they swarm around him._

_“Subject Y0XT39 has passed all first phase requirements of Stage One. Beginning preparations for phase two.”_

_“Get it strapped down faster. We don’t have all quintent.”_

_He doesn’t understand their noises or their actions. They loom over him and force him down and their clawed hands dig tightly into his flesh. It hurts. He doesn't understand why they’re hurting him. He doesn’t like it._

_He doesn’t want to be here. He tries to pull away, but their hands are so strong. They push him down against the coldness. Something_ thuds _hard inside of him, and his throat tightens, and a high keening noise begins._

_“Ugh, stupid thing. Be quiet. Shut up!”_

_“Get it to stop wiggling. Tie it down faster.”_

_“Get its arm down!”_

_The monsters get louder. He doesn’t like that. It makes the_ thud _inside of him get heavier, more painful, louder. They must hear it. He can feel it in his head as much as his chest. Will it make them louder still? He doesn’t want that._

_He tries to pull away again. He can’t. One of the monsters seizes one of his wrists, presses it down near his head. Something cold and painful clamps around it and he can’t move it, and when he pulls, it hurts. He pulls harder, and it hurts harder. They do the same with his other wrist, and that hurts, too, when he struggles._

_The keening grows louder, more high pitched. He struggles harder, but it only hurts more._

_“Damn thing! How does it keep moving so much? We haven’t even integrated muscle memory yet!”_

_“Forget that. I just want it to stop_ whimpering. _It’s distracting. This has to be_ perfect.”

_“Quit complaining, both of you. Get its head bolted down. There’s no room for error.”_

_More clawed hands force him down, more things wrap around him and keep him from pulling away. He doesn’t want to be here, but he can’t not be. It’s cold and it hurts and he doesn’t_ understand _but he can’t not be here. But he tries. They don’t like that; they get louder and wave those clawed hands above him in ways he doesn’t like._

_He wants to pull his head away from them, but he can’t even do that. The monsters reach across and around his face, and something cold and hard tightens around it, and it keeps him still. He can’t even tremble._

_He’s cold. He hurts. Inside his chest hurts most of all, with the heavy_ thud thud thud _that feels like it might burst out of him. His throat hurts too, so tight and heavy. The keening noise gets louder._

_He tries to move again. He still can’t. He doesn’t like it._

_“Watch it carefully. This has to be perfect. It’s the most visible and recognizable. I’ll begin.”_

_“Acknowledged. We will monitor.”_

_One of the monsters comes closer. Something gleams in its clawed hand, something long and bright. It leans forward and brings the thing close to his face, close to his eyes._

_He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t_ like _that! He frantically tries to get away, pulling, struggling, but he can’t move. He can’t_ move _and the monster comes closer and he doesn’t want this he doesn’t he doesn’t he doesn’t—_

_The bright thing presses against his face, just beneath one of his eyes. He can’t see anything anymore but parts of the claws of the monster and bright lights and—_

_Oh it_ hurts! _It hurts, it hurts, it_ hurts, _it hurts so bad and he wants it to stop, stop, stop, it’s bright pain and it keeps going and going and it drags across his face to the other side and it_ hurts _and he doesn’t_ understand _and he can barely see all he can do is_ feel _and he doesn’t want it, doesn’t like it, stop stop stop stop—_

_He bucks wildly, trying to get away, get away, get away. He thrashes, trying to pull free. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be here! He doesn’t want this! The keening changes, grows wild, loud, agonized—_

_—but he can’t get away, he can’t move, he can only lay there in pain against the cold hard thing and the monsters just keep hurting him and hurting him—_

_“Shut up, damn it! Stop screaming! It’s distracting!”_

_“Keep it_ still! _This has to be_ exactly _the same. If it manages to twitch even slightly at the wrong interval it’s not viable anymore.”_

_“Watch the cartilage. The scarring has to go deep enough to be accurate.”_

_The monsters hover around him and they hurt him_ worse _than before. He didn’t understand it could be worse. He understands now. It goes deeper, digs farther into his face. He can_ feel _each scrape of the gleaming metal thing and each time it brings_ agony.

 _He can feel something in his throat now, something hot and wet and cloying, and the wild, loud noise grows bubbling and muffled. He can’t breathe well, and gags, tries to wrench his head away, but he still can’t move. He can’t breathe and he can’t move and he_ hurts _and everything inside him screams in panic and fear._

_“Don’t drown it! Here, get those tubes, if it suffocates from its own bleeding we’re in trouble.”_

_“Why don’t we just drug the damn thing? Then it would be still_ and _it would shut up.”_

_“Can’t. The sedatives don’t mix well with the drugs the high priestess ordered prepared for the memory transfer. It will die.”_

_“Or worse. Remember Y0XS16? Tested completely viable, but it suddenly developed neurological issues at Stage Two. Total waste of effort.”_

_“I remember that. They threw it into storage. When they put it on the table later, it was the chemical combination that ruined its development.”_

_“Quiznak. Y0XS16 was twenty-three bodies ago! How hard is it to get a viable clone?”_

_“Very, so don’t screw it up this time and get those tubes in place. The high priestess will have our heads if we fail.”_

_“Damn it. Right. Earthlings are too damn fragile. Keep it_ still, _damn it! Useless thing...shut_ up!”

 _The monster pulls the gleaming, pain-causing thing away, and he likes that. He doesn’t want it near him anymore. It_ hurts. _But he still hurts, and chokes and struggles to move his head because he still can’t breathe well and something inside him fights and fights and_ fights _to stop that because he has to breathe, has to has to—_

_The monsters come back, this time with more things. They’re long and cold and they force them into his nose and mouth. The slick, hot, cloying thing in his throat slithers away, and the high-pitched keening grows louder again._

_“For quiznak’s sake, shut it_ up!”

_The monsters make loud, snarling noises, and one of them forces something else over his mouth, and the noise grows muffled again. He can still breathe—his throat doesn’t feel stuck. But it’s harder, and he doesn’t like the feel of the thing on his face. He tries to shake it off. He still can’t move. It stays there._

_The monster with the gleaming thing that causes_ pain _comes back._

 _The keening grows higher pitched again, more frantic, but it’s muffled. He struggles wildly to get away again, but he still can’t move. He still hurts all over but in his face most of all; he doesn’t want more. He wants the monsters to go away. He wants to not be here. He wants to not_ hurt.

 _But it doesn’t happen. The gleaming thing in the monster’s clawed hands digs into his face again. The keening grows high and intense again, even muffled, and he_ hurts hurts hurts _again._

 _He’s wild with fear. Wild with pain. He can’t see; his vision is white and what isn’t is full of the monster’s clawed hands. He can’t move, no matter how many times he tries, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t feel anything but coldness and a tightness in his throat and the harsh_ thud thud thud _in his chest and the ruthlessness of the things and the claws holding him down and the burning, agonizing, white-hot feel of the gleaming thing scratching deeper and deeper into him, just below his eyes. He can’t understand, not their guttural noises or why they’re hurting him._

 _He doesn’t like this! He doesn’t want this! He wants them to_ stop. _Why won’t they stop? He just wants to stop hurting. Inside, something wild and terrified and agonized screams and begs for the universe to please, please just let it_ stop.

Hold on. Help is coming.

_He gasps._

_He_ understands _that. They aren’t noises, not like the monsters make. It’s something in his head. Wait-pain-stops-soon. He senses strength, courage, compassion, protection, things he can’t_ comprehend _but he can_ feel, _deep inside._

_The monsters hurt him. They dig deeply into his face with the gleaming thing of pain and make their noises and hold him still. He can’t get away. He hurts. But—_

Hold on. Help is coming.

— _he thinks maybe it might stop. He doesn’t understand how. But maybe._

 _They hurt him. They hurt him and hurt him and hurt him and make their noises and he tries to wait, he_ tries, _but he doesn’t like this, he doesn’t—_

_“Keep it still!”_

_“Ryou!”_

_“This part needs to be deeper according to the initial scans—”_

_“Ryou, c’mon—”_

_“I see it. Bring up the details—”_

_“Here—”_

_“Ryou, wake up—”_

_“It should go wider here, in relation to this part of the facial structure—”_

_“I see it—”_

“Ryou!”

His eyes snap open, and a choked, stifled scream tries force its way out through clenched teeth. The noise dies off into an agonized whine, guttural and deep and painful in the depths of his throat.

He can still feel the agonizing bite of the gleaming scalpel digging deeper and deeper into his face. His whole scar _burns_ like it’s been freshly received. He can still taste the blood, hot and cloying, on his tongue, dripping down his throat.

Sickening. Disgusting. Vulgar. _Vile._ It’s vile, loathsome, intentional, _cruel._ It hurts in his body and in his soul and he wants it _gone,_ wants the memory of it _gone,_ wants everything about it _gone._ He claws at his face wildly, and metal and flesh dig at his skin, at the scarring. The pain is _real_ pain this time, not the phantom pains of that violent memory, but he doesn’t even care.

“Ryou! Woah, stop— _stop!”_

Something grabs his wrists, pulls them away from his face. He can all but feel the cold grip of clawed hands and see the shadow of the latest monster hovering over him. He fights wildly, frantic, desperate to gouge the disgusting remnant of them out of his face before they can stop him. They can’t control him. He wants it gone gone _gone—_

“Ryou! Stop, _stop!_ That doesn’t help. Trust me, I know. Stop, easy, _easy...”_

The grip doesn’t relent, and it’s like iron, even on his metal arm. He struggles against it, fantic to escape just as much as to reach his face, now. He doesn’t want to be tied down again. Not again.

“Easy, sssh, it’s safe. It’s just me. It’s Shiro. C’mon. Calm down. Easy…”

A gentle, soothing scent fills his senses. That doesn’t seem _right,_ exactly, and he freezes, confused. He still remembers the pain _vividly,_ can still feel the remnants of it, but the monsters aren’t attacking, and the scent is nice.

“That’s it. You with me now? Ryou?”

Ryou. Ryou. He’s _Ryou._

He lets out a shuddering gasp, and things come into focus again. He’s in his room, on the Castle of Lions. His room is lit by the gentle blue glow of Altean evening lights, and the scent of the dream ivy fills his nose. The shadow hovering over him isn’t a monster. It’s Shiro, face pale and eyes wide in the gloom, carefully holding his wrists away from his face.

“Let go,” he rasps, voice hoarse.

Shiro does immediately, understanding far too well the need to _not_ be restrained, especially after one of those awful dreams. Ryou sits up, and almost reflexively he reaches for his face again. But Shiro’s watching him carefully, and after a moment he wraps both his arms around himself instead and shivers.

“Hey.” Shiro sits down on the edge of the bed, still watching him with that careful, sympathetic expression. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s over. It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” Ryou whispers, still shivering. “It was memory. It was _real.”_

God, it was _real._ He’s been trying so hard to run from that truth. Trying so hard to avoid it, to bury it, to not show his distress, to not break down in front of anyone. Even now a part of him struggles to the bitter end to not crack in front of Shiro, to play it off, but….but it was _real._ It was _real._

It had really happened once. Only that time, nobody had come to rescue him. Nobody had known he existed. Nobody had cared.

That thought is enough to finally break him. His throat is painfully tight, and after a moment a long, slow whine claws itself free. It transforms into a sob as his shoulders begin to shake, and then a second, and a third. He squeezes his eyes shut against the painful sting in them, bows his head as he curls forward, and digs his fingers deeper into his shirt and his side.

The mattress shifts slightly as Shiro scoots closer, and a moment later arms wrap around him. For a moment, Ryou flinches, but the contact isn’t at all like the Galra lab technicians in his memory-nightmare. This is careful and comforting and warm. The tension in Ryou drains away as he uncoils his arms from around himself and clings almost desperately to his predecessor instead, burying his face in Shiro’s shoulder.

“It was real,” he repeats, muffled into Shiro’s shoulder. “It really _happened.”_

The hug seems to grow just the tiniest bit tighter, protective. But Shiro’s voice is calm and soothing as he says, “That’s in the past. It’s over. You’re safe _now.”_

He doesn’t demand to know what happened, or what’s over. His left arm raises to rub against Ryou’s back, a repetitive and calming rhythm, but he doesn’t demand explanations. Just repeats over and over that everything is okay now, that it’s safe, that the danger is past.

It’s hard to believe, with the dream so fresh in his head. That the danger could possibly be over; that he’s free from that place. But Shiro would take a bullet for him before he’d ever let Ryou go back to that, and he’s here now. Nothing’s going to get past him.

So he keeps his face buried in Shiro’s shoulder, and finally acknowledges the truth, and finally lets himself weep over it.

It takes a long time to cry himself out. He’s not sure how long. He’s not very experienced with it. Neither he nor Shiro are given to big displays of emotion naturally. But at last, his shoulders stop shaking, and the tightness in his throat isn’t so thick, and his eyes still sting a little, but he’s not dampening Shiro’s pajama shirt anymore at least.

But once he’s worn down, he has time to _think_ again. And he really wishes he didn’t have to.

It had been real. Very real, and from when they’d created him. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

It’s not the first time he’s had memories of how he was made. He’s remembered flashes here and there, bits and pieces. More and more since his failsafe illness, when Shiro’s implanted memories were gradually stripped away to reveal the things they had paved over. The storage pods, the pinkish-purple liquid inside, the feeling of drowning and not dying. The dozens of other bodies that looked just like him. The injections. The lab technicians. The bodies on the tables. The sounds of ventilators and monitors and the high-pitched whining of medical instruments. The desperate need to be perfect, viable, worthy of _living._ The light shining into his eyes, and the feeling of being manipulated.

But those were bits and pieces. Fragments. Enough to make an educated guess about what happened without being completely lost in the moment. He’d never dealt with anything this violently _vivid_ before, this complete, this long. He’d never felt how he’d experienced things before so strongly.

He’d never felt so completely alone.

“Feel better?” Shiro asks. His voice is still patient and soft. He hasn’t stopped rubbing his left hand against Ryou’s spine.

“Not really,” Ryou mutters. His voice croaks, hoarse. Shiro makes a sympathetic noise of understanding.

Ryou pushes away tiredly. Shiro lets him, releasing him from the hug. But he doesn’t get up from his spot on the side of the bed, ready in case Ryou needs him again.

Unexpected shame fills him. He’d told Shiro off just the day before for being overprotective, uncaring of if he was hurtful or not. And yet here Shiro was, still helping, even though Ryou had been resentful of that help.

“Sorry,” he says, staring at the wrinkled, sweat-soaked sheets, unable to meet his predecessor’s face. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I...I wasn’t that loud, was I?” The last thing he needs is to know he’d disturbed everyone on the ship obviously enough for Shiro to come running.

“No, you weren’t,” Shiro promises reassuringly. He’s had the same fear, Ryou knows. “Actually, the Black Lion woke me and sent me to come help.”

Ryou blinks at that. It’s enough to finally make him look up, and meet Shiro’s eyes. “What?”

“Yeah. It heard you call for help. So it told me, and I came.”

He’d never called for help so obviously in the dream. He hadn’t known _how_ to. He didn’t have words, or the understanding that someone else had the power to stop the pain.

But he had desperately wanted his suffering to end. And the Lions didn’t need language to understand their paladins’ needs. It must have been enough.

Still, he feels bad that it had come to that to begin with. “Sorry,” he repeats. “I didn’t mean to wake you. You hardly get enough sleep as it is.”

But Shiro shakes his head. “Don’t apologize. That looked bad. I wouldn’t want to sleep through that if I could have stopped it.” His expression turns sympathetic again. “You can tell me about it. If you want.”

Ryou shudders at the thought of recounting it. And Shiro...Shiro’s got enough in his head.

“It’s not...it’s not yours,” he says finally. Softly, almost a whisper. “And you have too many memories you have to deal with already.”

Shiro frowns at that. “You don’t have all of _my_ memories anymore, right? There’s probably some things that happened to me in that year that would be new for you to hear about. Right?”

“Maybe,” Ryou says. Tired. It’s hard to be sure what he’s lost, after the failsafe.

“Would you refuse to listen if I dreamed about one of those? Would you _want_ me to hold it in just to spare you?”

“No,” Ryou says, and despite his exhaustion, a little fierceness manages to work its way into his voice. “No. Never.”

“Then why would you hold yourself to that standard?” Shiro asks, voice soft. “It’s not right that you’d have to suffer alone any more than it would be for me.”

“It’s not…you wouldn’t understand,” Ryou whispers. Shiro’s memories are full of dark things, but even then, he’d always been _himself._ He’d never been so…so helpless, so completely incapable of understanding what was happening to him. So _young_ inside his own head. His whole chance at life had never balanced on the knife’s edge of absolute perfection, absolute viability, living or dying by torture.

He _couldn’t_ understand. Nothing born the right way could.

“Maybe I can’t,” Shiro says. “But I don’t think it’s about understanding, Ryou. I think it’s about just having somebody to _listen._ So you don’t have to be alone with it. I know how much that hurts.”

Ryou swallows. _That,_ Shiro would understand. In your own head, in your own traumas, it’s so lonely.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Shiro says. “Ever, if you’re really not comfortable with it. I’ll never force you to. But I want you to understand that you _can_ tell me, if you want. That’s all I ask. Okay?”

“Okay,” Ryou whispers.

“Alright. Good,” Shiro says. “For now, I can still stay here, if want. Even if you don’t want to talk. Sometimes it’s better not to be alone with your thoughts.”

It still seems a little selfish to ask that of Shiro. He _should_ be able to go back to his room. He shouldn’t have to deal with Ryou’s shit.

But he really doesn’t want to be alone with that memory in his head right now. So he whispers shakily, “I’d like that. For a little while. If that’s good with you.”

“Sure,” Shiro agrees. He stands up from the edge of the bed, but only long enough to crawl further inside, and sit with his back against the interior wall of the bunk. He’s a comfortable enough distance from Ryou that he’s not crowding, giving him space, but close enough to still make it clear he’s not abandoning Ryou in this.

Ryou is grateful for that. He also rearranges himself until he’s sitting back against the wall, side by side with Shiro. The different perspective helps, a little. He toys with one of the long tendrils of the dream ivy, rubbing one of the soft leaves between the fingers of his left hand, and works hard to calm his breathing and his pounding heart.

For a while, that’s it. Ryou isn’t sure how long, because he doesn’t glance at the clock. He’s too afraid to know what time he’d been woken at this time, how much sleep he _hadn’t_ gotten.

But the silence is...comfortable. He’s conscious of Shiro’s presence, but he isn’t pressured into talking, and he’s strongly aware at that exact moment of where and when he is. It helps him come to grips with the fact that what Shiro had said _was_ true. What had happened to him, what had been _done_ to him, was awful. It would be with him forever. But it was in the past. Now, at least, he was safe.

Maybe that’s why he says something after all.

It’s not immediate. It takes him a long time to even seriously consider the possibility, regardless of what he’d promised Shiro. It takes him longer still to work up the nerve to try and say anything. He’s not even sure _what_ to say. How does he explain what happened to someone who isn’t capable of ever understanding it?

But it’s like Shiro said. It’s not about understanding. It’s about listening.

So he rattles something off quickly, before the words can get stuck in his throat. “I think I was someone else. Before I was you.”

Shiro looks up. When Ryou doesn’t say anything further, he prompts gently, patiently, “What do you mean?”

Ryou hesitates, unsure what to say. When he does speak, it’s slow and hesitant, struggling to find the right words. “I didn’t...understand. Things. Or words. I couldn’t...they must have had to grow...us...first. Make sure we...worked...physically, first. Before putting your mind in here.” He raises his right arm, the one not occupied with the ivy, to tap at his temples.

Shiro doesn’t say anything. He just watches and listens and doesn’t interrupt.

Ryou is grateful. Now that he’s started, he has to finish. “But I think it….it couldn’t be right away. Be stupid, to...to stick your mind in a body that didn’t work. Had to be perfect first. They had to...to make sure. Perfect.” He swallows. “So I guess...during that time, there was somebody else. Somebody who’d just been born. Who...who didn’t understand. Any of it.”

His throat tightens a little as he adds, “I think...we must have all been like that.”

And most of them had died. Any of them that hadn’t been viable, any tiny mistake or disability or failure, none of them would have had the right to live. And none of them would have understood. They’d have been so scared…

He shudders.

Shiro’s hand is on his shoulder almost right away, squeezing reassuringly. “Hey. It’s okay. That’s awful, but it’s in the past.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” Ryou says. He swallows again. “They didn’t... _I_ didn’t...understand. What was happening. Before you. But I couldn’t...I guess I had to be _ready._ To be you. All the way.” He laughs mirthlessly. “You’d notice if something was off, wouldn’t you? It was already confusing enough, and if there hadn’t been...”

“Hadn’t been what?” Shiro squeezes his shoulder again, gently, reassuringly.

Ryou is silent for a long time. Shiro doesn’t push him, just waits for Ryou to process at his own pace. Finally he says, “Scars aren’t genetic.”

Shiro breathes in sharply. A moment later, his left arm snakes around Ryou’s shoulders, pulling him into a half hug. “Oh. _Oh._ I’m so sorry. I never even...I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Ryou allows himself to be tugged into the hug, suddenly weary. “Not your fault.” Shiro’s scars hardly came through pleasant means, either, and he certainly hadn’t wanted any. Ryou had long suspected that his own replicas _had_ to have been artificially recreated. He’d just never expected to experience the blatant, intentional torture that had caused them, in vivid, excruciating detail.

“That doesn’t make what they did any less wrong,” Shiro says. His tone is a mix of deeply sympathetic and fiercely protective, outraged for his sake. A moment later, his voice softens, and he adds more patiently, “And that’s what….tonight?”

“Yes,” Ryou whispers. “The….the first one.” He touches at his face, more gently this time, mindful of the scratches he’d managed to put there in his wild and frenzied panic earlier. He can still feel the vague throb of dream-given phantom pains there, under the rough surface of healed scar tissue.

“I...I didn’t understand. I couldn’t. I didn’t know why they kept hurting me, but they just wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t ask them to. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t run. I was so scared. I didn’t understand anything else but being scared and hurting. I just wanted them to stop _hurting_ me.”

There’s another sharp intake of breath from Shiro at that, and his arm grows tighter around Ryou’s shoulders. “That _never_ should have happened,” he says after a moment. “I’m so sorry it did.”

Ryou shrugs wearily, and flops his head against Shiro’s shoulder, exhausted from seven quintents of no rest and who knew how many vargas of wringing his soul out. “Wonder who I might’ve been, if…”

If the Galra hadn’t paved over that newborn mind to make it someone else. If it had been given a chance to live like an actual human being of his own, rather than be tortured like a lab rat, before covering up all those memories because it was inconvenient for him to have them.

He doesn’t regret inheriting almost everything he is from Shiro. Doesn’t blame him for it, or hate him for it. In a way, that’s who he is, too. But he does regret that he’ll never have the opportunity to know what he would have been on his own, without that influence.

“Strong.”

Ryou blinks, and rolls his head wearily back up to stare at Shiro. “What?”

“That person might not have been given much of a chance after being born,” Shiro says softly. “But that part of you was strong. Strong enough to survive all of _that_ on your own. Without any help from me.”

“Still a copy of you,” Ryou says, frowning. “The body, at least.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shiro says insistently. “ _You_ were strong. The part that was you from the beginning.”

That...actually doesn’t sound wrong. It doesn’t feel wrong, either. Maybe there’s a part of him that’s always been _him_ after all, and never Shiro.

Maybe the Galra couldn’t take that from him completely.

He lets his head drop against Shiro’s shoulder again. It’s a grand revelation, but too grand for him to consider right now. He’s too tired to give it his full attention. Maybe later, when he’s not so exhausted.

“Maybe,” is all he says.

Shiro hums in agreement. He probably understands it’s too much to think on now, too. “Feel any better?”

Ryou considers. He feels exhausted, wrung out, stretched thin. His scar still prickles and burns, from memory and from his own self-inflicted scratches. There’s a number of existential questions haunting him that he’ll have to look at sooner or later. The specters of dozens more awful things hover at the fringes of his mind, and he knows he’ll have to face them someday.

But he doesn’t feel alone. And no matter what happened in the past, no matter what he had to survive on his own, he never has to face it alone again.

“A little,” he slurs, after a moment.

“Good.”

He doesn’t actually remember dropping off, still flopped against Shiro’s shoulder. But it’s the first time in seven quintents that he sleeps soundly through the rest of the night.

* * *

 

The dream doesn’t come back again.

In a way, Ryou supposes that makes sense. Something had been trying to break its way out, had been fighting to make itself known. Maybe it was the ghost of that newborn mind struggling to not be forgotten. Maybe it was his brain’s way of trying to force him to accept what had happened to him. Maybe life was just out to play another cruel prank, and there was no reason at all.

Whatever the cause, once it’s done what it wanted to do, the dream fades away. Ryou still remembers it vividly; he doesn’t think he can ever forget it, ever again. But it doesn’t torment him at night, and he’s able to sleep relatively peacefully once again.

There will be others. He’s sure of it. That one incident can’t be the only form of torture tucked away in his head. He dreads the day those decide it’s time to be free, too.

But he knows better than to think he has to deal with it alone, this time. The worst of the dream had come from absolute loneliness—knowing he couldn’t do anything to stop his suffering, not understanding there was anyone else who could stop it for him. Trying to be strong on his own had only reinforced that, made it worse.

When others come, he’ll be ready for them, this time. He doesn’t have to fight alone in the present, not like he did in the past.

He’ll be ready. And, when that day comes for Shiro, too, he’ll be ready to return the favor.

He swears by it.

**Author's Note:**

> Every time I watch _the Journey_ I always feel bad for poor Kuron and those flashbacks he has at the very start of the episode. They seem so scary. And that's only a very tiny part of what happened, presumably.


End file.
